PASCAL EcCoWell Community Recovery Program - Final Report

In this posting, we report on the PASCAL EcCoWell Community Recovery Program, which was conducted from March to October 2020 with attached an extensive edited report from Peter Kearns and Denise-Reghenzani-Kearns. The programme was developed to test whether EcCoWell ideas on integration and partnership would have value in supporting community recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Five learning cities, two learning neighbourhoods, and two universities participated in the program. Short profiles of participants are given in Appendix 1.

The EcCoWell concept was developed by PASCAL in 2012 in the context of the PASCAL Program on International Exchanges (PIE).  EcCoWell was directed at integrating the strands of learning city development in a holistic and coherent way. The city of Cork was an international leader in EcCoWell development, along with Datong Taipei and the City Seminary in Harlem New York. All three participated in the Community Recovery Program.

A series of seven briefing papers were prepared for the program. These ranged across subjects such as developing learning neighbourhoods, mental health and well being, environment policy and practice, and rethinking lifelong learning.

Participants in the program produced short reports in October on their planning for community recovery from the pandemic. These reports are set out in Part 2 of this paper. Insights gained from the program are set out in Part 3 of this paper in the following framework.

1. Supporting individual well-being in adjusting to on-going change.
2. Building resilient communities with social cohesion.
3. Promoting consciousness of global interdependence.
4. Harnessing technology to serve human purposes.
5. Implications for learning cities.
6. Connecting up for the further development of the EcCoWell concept

The program showed that there would be value in the further development of the EcCoWell concept in supporting learning cities in adjusting to changing conditions, particularly in the development of psychosocial aspects of fostering well-being and empathy, along with global consciousness, in communities towards a sustainable future at a time of disruptive change.